A CALL to downgrade the potentially deadly dance drug ecstasy has been dismissed by Home Secretary David Blunkett.

And Merseyside MPs broadly welcomed Mr Blunkett's decision.

Members of the Home Affairs select committee said the drug, taken by hundreds of thousands of young clubbers every weekend, should be grouped in class B alongside amphetamines and barbiturates rather than in class A with heroin and cocaine.

In their long-awaited report on Britain's drugs laws the cross-party group dismissed legalisation and decriminalisation as a way forward but, paving the way for future changes, urged ministers to lobby for the loosening of international treaties which prohibit such radical steps.

Mr Blunkett said: "Ecstasy can, and does, kill unpredictably and there is no such thing as a safe dose.

"I believe it should remain class A. Reclassification of ecstasy is not on the government's agenda."

Mr Blunkett also rejected a committee recommendation that GPs should be permitted to prescribe heroin, rather than substitues, to addicts.

Walton MP Peter Kilfoyle said: "While I do not have a problem with prescribing to addicts, I have every objection to going soft on ecstasy.

"There is a body of evidence which suggests that so-called soft drugs have a long-term effect on users and I won't take a gamble on young people's lives."

Bootle's MP Joe Benton said: "Ecstasy, like cannabis, is too often a stepping stone to harder drugs and we have all seen the consequences of that."

Knowsley North and Sefton East MP George Howarth said: "The danger of reclassifying drugs is that it sends out the wrong message to young people, and that applies to ecstasy as well as cannabis.

"As for prescribing heroin, I would not condemn it but it needs to be monitored very closely."

However, Riverside MP Louise Ellman agreed with the committee that the widespread use of ecstasy among young ravers needed to be understood, and that youngsters who dabble should not be treated in the same way as hardened criminal pushers.